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Cassandra
White
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. Tulane University, 2001
Research Interests: Medical anthropology, qualitative methods,
folk models of disease, medical discourse, leprosy, Brazilian popular
culture, Latin America
 Cassandra
White received her B.A. and M.A. from the University of Florida
and her Ph.D. from Tulane University in 2001. She taught for two
years as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Sweet
Briar College in Virginia before coming to Georgia State.
Dr. White is interested in health and disease cross-culturally.
She has collected personal narratives of former patients and staff
at the Gillis W. Long Hansen's Disease Center (or "Carville"),
which served as a hospital and confinement community for leprosy
patients throughout much of the 20th century. In her most recent
research project, she focused on socioeconomic and cultural aspects
of leprosy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; she investigated how religion,
class, gender, and the medical encounter shape the contemporary
experience of leprosy for patients in Brazil. She is currently interested
in how the conditions of life in Brazilian shantytowns (favelas)
and other low-income neighborhoods affect both physical health and
local perceptions of health and the body. Dr. White is also interested
in examining the impact of international health policy on the global
leprosy situation. She presented three papers at the International
Leprosy Congress in Salvador, Brazil in August 2002, and she has
recently published an article in Leprosy Review on her research
in Brazil.
Dr. White, fluent in Spanish and Brazilian-Portuguese, is also
a Latin Americanist. She has done research in the past on women's
political participation in the shantytowns of Latin American megacities.
At present, she is looking at how popular forms of entertainment
in Brazil (such as the telenovela, or serial drama) are being
used to disseminate information about public health and social issues.
(The photo shows Dr. White at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, a medical
research institute in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).
Send e-mail to: Cassandra White
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